Adding a clip from an interview w/Barbara Bush in which she describes her & her husband’s loss of their daughter to Leukemia. I don’t doubt the sincerity of her heartbreak, but how does one family’s bereavement square w/that of hundreds of thousands of families as a result of the weapons of war dropped during the watch of their patriarch, H.W.?

President and Mrs. Bush were deeply impacted by the death of their daughter Robin, who succumbed to leukemia at the age of three. For the rest of their lives, helping to fight cancer was one of the many great causes driving George and Barbara Bush.

Other quotes from the Presidential Library:

"We have a tendency in this country to forget history, so I think the younger people come here and they're introduced to who George Bush was, because they don't know who he is," museum director Warren Finch says.

“He was always someone who people looked to and said, he can do the job,” Anaya says. “He's someone who really cares. and I think that's reflective of his life. Somebody who really cares about people, really cares about others, and has actually sacrificed for that.”

As the nation laid to rest President George H.W. Bush, little attention was given to what perhaps were his most perceptive observations.

One of them was made in 1989, when the USSR was being opened up by Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms and his abandonment of communist expansionist ideology. Bush noted favorably the idea of joining Moscow in a new security architecture from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

The second one was two years later, in August 1991 during a trip to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. At that time, Ukraine was still a part of a Soviet Union that was becoming noticeably unstable. Bush counseled Ukrainians: “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.”

Bush’s strategic vision was abandoned by his successors Bill Clinton; his own son, George W. Bush; and Barack Obama. In the words of one of America’s most distinguished diplomats, George Kennan, all three have committed “a tragic foreign policy mistake” by expanding NATO toward Russia’s borders. Mr. Obama finished the job by co-sponsoring with the European Union and the 2014 coup in Ukraine.In his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump promoted ideas consistent with those of Ronald Reagan and the senior Bush to reduce the antagonism between the two nuclear superpowers. But after assuming office, Mr. Trump was quickly called to order by the “adults in the room,” who obviously knew better than the president and more than 63 million Americans who voted for him and his agenda.

As for Bush’s 1991 warning to Ukrainians, William Safire of The New York Times denounced it at the time as a “colossal misjudgment,” dubbing it the “Chicken Kiev Speech” — a label that stuck. As we see now, Bush was right and his critics were wrong.

Ukraine did get its independence four months later, when the USSR dissolved, but beneath the facade of the new state were deep ethnic, linguistic, religious and regional divisions. These were compounded by hopelessly corrupt governance at the mercy of ruthless oligarchic interests.

Since 1991, Ukraine’s divisions have worsened. Astonishingly, so has the corruption as Bush’s Kievan chickens have now come home to roost.No one knows why Victoria Nuland, Mr. Obama’s assistant secretary of state, proudly revealed that U.S. taxpayers provided $5 billion to promote democracy in Ukraine. Was this astronomical amount wasted?

Indeed, some money was stolen, but people in the know believe the real purpose of this bounty was implementing the agenda of Zbigniew Brzezinski and other advocates of the “unipolar” world order by breaking the historical ties between Russia and Ukraine to prevent Moscow from ever gaining strength to challenge U.S. hegemony.

In the end, Bush’s vision of reconciling Russia with the West failed. Ukraine, which was one of the richest and technologically advanced republics of the USSR, is now the poorest country in Europe, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Taking into account his dismal re-election prospects, President and oligarch Petro Poroshenko (while continuing to make money in Russia) is whipping up nationalism and is seeking to drag us into military conflict with a nuclear power. Even worse, he seems to be succeeding as more and more voices on Capitol Hill call for introducing a greater U.S. and NATO presence in the Black Sea region and increasing military assistance to our “ally.”

Only the blind can’t see that the recent incident in the Kerch Strait was masterminded by Mr. Poroshenko, whose single-digit poll rating is tied with comic actor Vladimir Zelensky’s. The difference is that Mr. Zelensky’s job is to make people laugh while Mr. Poroshenko can crank up the heat whenever he thinks his shaky political prospects demand it.

All he needs is another incident with Russia, and it’s a no-lose bet for him as Mr. Poroshenko knows that contrary to Bush’s 1991 pledge that Washington would not support “suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred” it is doing exactly that.

Allies are supposed to share American values, but deepening what Bush called “local despotism” Mr. Poroshenko’s recent imposition of martial law will facilitate forcible seizures of churches and monasteries held by the canonical Orthodox Church in Ukraine — a move likely to provoke violent confrontations across the country. In addition, rising neo-Nazi influence has become too visible even for U.S. mainstream media to ignore. However, Congress, the State Department and, sadly, even Christian and Jewish leaders, are doing their best not to see it.

To sum up, there are no realistic expectations for the current situation to improve. The prospect of war is voiced more and more often on both sides of the Atlantic, and this is not what the 41st president envisioned.

One can only hope and pray that the worst will not come to pass.

⦁ Edward Lozansky is founder and president of the American University in Moscow.

If Barthes can forgive me, “What the public wants is the image of passion Justice, not passion Justice itself.”

Well, this has turned into a real "George HW Bush is a total asshole" thread, which is sad in many ways. A terrible way to live, moreover, a terrible way to rule over others too. We can add the death of W's sister Robin to the list of abnormal behaviors his parents exhibited. I'm kind of sorry for starting this thread now. I hated the man. Did vile and abominable things to this world that may never truly come to light. I suffer in the wake of his travesties, we all do. But condemning him feels lacking in compassion. I'm sorry you decided to treat the world as a place to be defiled. Rest in peace asshole. Here's the truth about Robin and the Bushes:

George Bush’s next-eldest sibling, Robin, died of leukemia at the age of three, when he was seven years old himself. At the time she became ill, Robin was the future president’s only sibling (although Jeb Bush was born before she died) and a favorite playmate. His parents never told him that she was sick, although he was asked to stop playing with her. Only after her death did they disclose to him her illness, which had lasted longer than doctors expected it to and had led the Bushes on a frantic quest back East to find a specialist who could treat her. These efforts kept them away from their son for long stretches of time, and he was not present when Robin died, nor at her burial.

After the service in Connecticut, Barbara and George H.W. Bush returned to Houston the next day. There was no further attempt at closure or a protracted mourning process, in keeping with WASP mores of the time.

Robin died in New York in October 1953; her parents spent the next day golfing in Rye, attending a small memorial service the following day before flying back to Texas. George learned of his sister’s illness only after her death, when his parents returned to Texas, where the family remained while the child’s body was buried in a Connecticut family plot.

We all deal with death poorly. The disgusting oats you've sewn Bush family...left the world in shambles. We're still fighting those damn wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after those shit bag pranks you dumb asses pulled on 9/11. ISIS (the terrorist 'organization', not the now contaminated Goddess of fertility, a personification of nature even of Khemet fame), your occulted terrorist hand runs rampant as the new Osama Bin Laden to blame all globalist mayhem on, devouring peace in the world. Where the fuck are you peoples minds when your fucking the world over?! Make me sick to come from the same race as you.

thrulookingglass » Thu Dec 20, 2018 8:23 pm wrote:George Bush’s next-eldest sibling, Robin, died of leukemia at the age of three, when he was seven years old himself. At the time she became ill, Robin was the future president’s only sibling (although Jeb Bush was born before she died) and a favorite playmate. His parents never told him that she was sick, although he was asked to stop playing with her. Only after her death did they disclose to him her illness, which had lasted longer than doctors expected it to and had led the Bushes on a frantic quest back East to find a specialist who could treat her. These efforts kept them away from their son for long stretches of time, and he was not present when Robin died, nor at her burial.

After the service in Connecticut, Barbara and George H.W. Bush returned to Houston the next day. There was no further attempt at closure or a protracted mourning process, in keeping with WASP mores of the time.

Robin died in New York in October 1953; her parents spent the next day golfing in Rye, attending a small memorial service the following day before flying back to Texas. George learned of his sister’s illness only after her death, when his parents returned to Texas, where the family remained while the child’s body was buried in a Connecticut family plot.

Thanks for the insight on George W. ‘s early trauma. A quick search shows this is from the book:.

Clearly the 7 year-old future president's emotional and psychological well-being were buried along with the body of his little sister. No wonder he came across more as a child than an adult and confirms that he wasn't in charge during his tenure as president (no excuse for his actions; he took the oaths and signed the orders.)

Scary, in addition to their conscious agendas, to think of 'leaders' unconscious revenge and motives due to their early childhood experiences; lack of parenting, abusive/alcoholic parenting, abandonment, etc... leading to arrested development or even insanity. I remember long ago reading Alice Miller's book(s) in which she wrote about how the early childhood of Nicolae Ceauşescu could have impacted his cruel regime in Romania; she also wrote about Hitler's and Stalin's in her book The Untouched Key.

HM's holiday season death was just in time to benefit bookseller Xmas profits by recycling books that refresh the Bush myth.

Books for the Holidays and New Year

December 20, 2018

A loving and highly readable retrospective on the elder Bush is George W.’s book, 41: A Portrait of My Father. Although he digresses to cast his own policies in a positive light, 43’s intimate portrayal of his dad is truly memorable.

[George H. W. Bush was the Director of the CIA from 1976 to 1977, Vice-President under the Reagan Administration in the 1980s, and President from 1989 to 1993. As the country moves to posthumously honor him, CAM brings you this article from our Archives–a flashback we will provide from time to time–on Bush Sr. published by Anthony L Kimery in 1992 (CAQ #41). Kimery, a free-lance investigative journalist, provides this in-depth exposé of Bush’s covert-related activities. Hard-hitting facts and well-footnoted, the article demonstrates the kind of hidden manipulation of corporate and geopolitical interests through hands-on decision-making and networking at the highest levels.]

Throughout his career, Bush’s relationship to the CIA has reflected his hands-on approach and close association to the world of covert operations

“I don’t think there’s ever been a vice presi­dent… as much involved at the highest level in our policy-making and our decisions than George,” said President Reagan in March 1985.1 At the 1988 Republican national convention, in response to the Demo­crats’ taunt, “Where was George,” during Iran-Contra, Reagan said, “George played a major role in everything we’ve accomplished …. George was there.”

Bush’s most important contribution was to national security policy, a role for which he was uniquely qualified. Recipient of his own special daily CIA/national security briefings, he was a prominent, some say guiding, member of the National Security Council (NSC) – home to most of the Iran-Contra plotting and off-the-shelf secret operations. He also chaired crucial sub-national security policy groups which gave birth to Iran-Contra’s more heinous rogueries.2 The question raised by all this access and intimacy is not so much how integral Bush was formulating and carrying out the national security policies that allowed for crimes such as Iran-Contra. Rather, the question that needs to be answered is why he is such an important player at all.

On the surface, Bush’s rise within policy and intelligence circles­-from a moderately suc­cessful Texas business­man to moderately successful political play­er, to director of the CIA, to an unusually involved vice president—seems unlikely.

If, however, he had a longer, more intimate re­lationship with the CIA than the public record indicates, much about Bush’s spectacular ca­reer would be explained. While not conclusive, there is a growing body of evidence that for almost half a century, Bush has been a Company man. That evidence is worth examining.

The Early Years: Waltzing with Spooks

Bush’s most important ties to the intelligence com­munity were likely knotted at Yale, which he attended from 1945 to 1948. During these formative years for both Bush and the Cold War, the CIA recruited vigorously and almost exclusively at the elite Ivy.3 Yale was so intimately inter­twined with the U.S. spy community that it “influenced the CIA more than any other institution,” wrote historian Robin W. Winks.4 All the recruits did not enter the Agency itself. Many Yale graduates going to work for multinational corporations were routinely recruited to provide intel­ligence, particularly from behind the Iron Curtain.

The CIA’s full-time salaried headhunter at Yale was crew coach Allen “Skip” Waltz, a former naval intelligence officer who had a good view of Bush.5 As a member of Yale’s Undergraduate Athletic Association and Under­graduate Board of Deacons, Bush had to have worked closely with Waltz on the university’s athletic programs from which the coach picked most of the men he steered to the CIA. It is inconceivable Waltz didn’t try to recruit Bush, say former Agency officials recruited at Yale.6

But it wasn’t just Bush’s scholastic achievements that made him desirable as a prospective spy. His father, Pres­cott, Sr., probably also had a part in the CIA’s interest in young George.7 A managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman and major benefactor of Yale, Prescott had been an Army Intelligence operative in World War I. He also ardently supported Eisenhower’s covert Cold War policies and was a close friend of William Casey, an OSS veteran who went on to head the CIA from 1981 until his death in 1987. Given these connections, it was not surprising that the job awaiting his son upon graduation in 1948 was with a CIA-linked company headed by a close friend who was also on good terms with top people in the Agency.

Oiling the Company Machine

Bush started his career as a salesman for International Derrick and Equipment Company (IDECO), a subsidiary of Houston-based Dresser Industries. This global engi­neering and construction conglomerate had routinely served as a CIA cover.8 Bush’s job, peddling IDECO’s services, including behind the Iron Curtain, was a curious responsibility, considering Bush’s inexperience in either the oil industry or international relations.

Dresser Industries, longtime Chairman of the Board Henry Neil Mallon, the “surrogate uncle” and “father-con­fessor” to Prescott’s children, personally offered Bush the IDECO job.9 Mallon was a friend to numerous ranking Cold War era intelligence officials, including Allen Dulles—an OSS veteran and ground floor official of the CIA. (Dulles headed the Agency from 1953 until 1961 when he was sacked by President Kennedy in the wake of the Bay of Pigs disaster.) Mallon steered prospective candidates for spy work to Dulles and often provided cover employment to CIA operatives.10 Prescott and Mallon were also Yale classmates and initiates of Skull and Bones, the in­famous secret Yale fraternity that was a fertile CIA recruiting ground during the Cold War .11 George joined Skull and Bones his junior year.

DeMohrenschildt with his wife holding photos of Kennedys. He was linked to both CIA covert operations and to Bush

Another particularly important operative with whom Mallon was well acquainted would also eventually work with George Bush. George DeMohrenschildt, a Russian Count whose family fled Russia after the Bolshevik revolution, had been part of a spy network Dulles ran inside Hitler’s intelligence organization.12

Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, DeMohrenschildt appears to have been submerged as a deep cover CIA “asset,” operating under the guise of a consulting petro­leum geologist specializing in making deals between U.S. oil companies and the East-bloc nations to which he was remarkably well-connected.13 Mallon personally introduced the Count to Bush at about the same time Mallon handed Bush the highly sensitive responsibility of negotiating East­-bloc deals. The officials with whom Bush dealt had detailed knowledge of Soviet-bloc oil and gas production and ex­ploration and drilling capabilities, as well as strategic ex­ploration and production plans outside the USSR. Bush convivially wheeled and dealed with the communists’ pe­troleum experts without the slightest grimace by U.S. auth­orities. In fact, when a Yugoslavian oil industry official came to the U.S. in 1948 to talk to Dresser Industries, the State Department barely flinched and he went straight to neophyte salesman George Bush in Midland, Texas.14 “It’s inconceivable then that the CIA didn’t debrief Bush after each and every meeting [he had with the East’s representatives].” -Victor Marchetti, former CIA officer. Driven by a Cold War policy of covertly thwarting expan­sion of the Soviet petroleum industry wherever possible, the CIA was desperate for accurate intelligence on the USSR’s oil and gas production activities. “It’s inconceivable then that the CIA didn’t debrief Bush after each and every meeting [he had with the East’s representatives],” explained Victor Mar­chetti, a former ranking CIA officer and Soviet specialist were routinely debriefed,” Marchetti said.15

For decades, the CIA relied heavily on debriefings of U.S. businesspeople–some of whom were turned into full-fledged agents–for valuable intelligence tidbits. That Bush was one of those recruited to spy, is a possibility Marchetti and other ex-CIA officials find consistent with the normal Company functioning. And it would certainly go far in explaining Bush’s relationship with the mysterious Count DeMohrenschildt. A degreed petroleum geologist, the Count could have explained precisely what information Bush needed to look for to help the CIA fill its intelligence gaps. Later a CIA spy in Yugoslavia, DeMohrenschildt may have been Bush’s “handler” – his briefer and de­briefer. “Bush had all the characteristics of being a spook,” said a retired CIA operative who says be worked for Dresser as a cover and who knew the future president.16

The possibility that deep cover operative DeMohren­schildt’s relationship to Bush was that of fellow intelligence gatherer is further strengthened by DeMohrenschildt’s continuing association with Bush, and by the apparently secret turn in their relationship at about the time CIA operations against Fidel Castro began.

Neatly typewritten among the meticulous pages of the telephone and address book the Count carried with him until his alleged suicide, is an entry for “George Bush.”

It includes his nickname, “Poppy,” and his home ad­dress and telephone number in Midland, Texas, where Bush and his family lived from 1953 until he moved the offices of Zapata Off-Shore Oil Company to Houston in 1959. Curiously, the two of them continued to meet secretly in Houston.17 DeMohrenschildt made no new entry for Bush’s residence in Houston. There was only an “X” marked through the old address.18 In his testimony to the Warren Commission, DeMohrenschildt acknowledged having made frequent trips to Houston beginning in the late 1950s for which he gave only vague explanations.19 Although there is no proof, it is possible that one reason for his stealth was the continued meetings with Bush. By the early 1960s, Bush was regularly servicing the CIA in Latin America. “I know [Bush] was involved [with the CIA) in the Caribbean,” said an ex-CIA agent.20 Zapata Zaps Mexico It was around this time, in the late 1950s, that Bush expanded his business dealings in Mexico. The counter­revolutionary, anti-nationalization policies enforced by the CIA in the incendiary Mexico-Caribbean-Central America region certainly worked to Bush’s financial advantage. Fol­lowing Castro’s successful revolution in 1959, his govern­ment took over all oil and gas enterprises in Cuba and nationalized the industry–a blow to U.S. oil companies which had just begun to tap into Cuba’s oil reservoirs.21

Fearing that the desire to control their own industries would spread to other Third World countries, the CIA went to bat for big oil amalgamations which were worried about the security of their investments in the region’s considerable oil and natural gas resources. The Agency began assembling a paramilitary force to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. Again, there was a neat mesh between CIA policy objectives and Bush business interests in the region. In the summer of 1959, Bush was principal owner of Zapata Off-Shore Oil Company, which he had spun off from Zapata Petroleum-a company he helped found six years earlier.

Veteran CIA operatives in the war against Castro say Bush not only let the CIA use Zapata as a front for running some of its operations (including the use of several off­shore drilling platforms), but assert that Bush personally served as a conduit through which the Agency disbursed money for contracted services. 22

Lending themselves this way to the CIA was a classical segue for many businesspeople in the 1950s and early 1960s who had wet their feet spying for the CIA behind the Iron Curtain. The Agency recruited scores of conservative businesspeople to volunteer their companies as “fronts” for hiding the impending invasion against Castro.23

A number of veteran Cold Warriors, none of whom knows one another, are adamant in their respective claims that Bush worked for the Agency during this period. They tell similar disturbing stories about Bush having dirtied his hands “doing the Company’s bidding,” as one put it. This allegation is buttressed by the internal records of a secret alumnus of former back alley operations who confirms that contract mercenaries were indeed employed by Zapata.24 PEMEX: Oiling the CIA and Greasing Bush’s Palm The Agency-industry fear–that they might lose control of oil reserves in their “backyard”–was well-founded. On the heels of Castro’s nationalization, Mexico, a country of more strategic and economic importance to the U.S. than Cuba, also moved to nationalize its oil industry. Concur­rently, Mexico embarked on a massive economic expansion program which relied heavily on wooing foreign credits. One country which offered tantalizing loans and oil drilling expertise was the Soviet Union.25 The CIA was concerned that the Soviets would establish a foothold in Mexico’s oil industry. The U.S. oilmen were worried that they would lose their profitable domination of Mexico’s oil industry and, unable to stop the nationalization, they rushed in to snare lucrative business arrangements with PEMEX, Mexico’s new state-owned oil monopoly.[img][img]https://i.postimg.cc/85HpTVVb/b-41.png[/img][/img]PEMEX head Diaz Serrano, later convicted of fraud, was a business associate of Bush and an ally of the CIA While most bid overtly for contracts, some oilmen worked closely with the large Mexico City CIA station. One corporation which benefited from the considerable leverage the CIA held over certain Mexican officials running PEMEX, was Bush’s Zapata Off-Shore Oil Company. By 1960, Agency assets had helped Bush erect the founda­tion for a secret and illegal oil drilling partnership on Mexican soil.26 In 1959, working through high-level officials of Dresser Industries, Bush teamed up with ranking Mexican officials whose offices were cooperating closely with the CIA Chief of Station in Mexico City. The office of Minister of Government Luis Echeverria Alvarez, which oversaw Mexico’s oil interests and supervised the Directorate of Federal Security (his country’s equivalent of the CIA) was particularly helpful. In the summer of 1959, circumventing Mexican laws requiring drilling contracts be held by Mexican nationals, Bush and his Mexican front men created Permargo Company.27

Although on paper the company appeared to be Mexican-owned, Bush and his associates camouflaged Zapata’s 50 percent ownership of Permargo. The company, which pioneered in deploying mobile deep sea oil drilling platforms, was virtually alone in the Caribbean Sea and off the shores of South America.28

Bush engineered the deal without telling any Zapata Off-Shore stockholders.29 He worked through Jorge Diaz Serrano, a prominent citizen many Mexicans believed would be their country’s next president. Less known were his close ties to the CIA’s station in Mexico City.30 Diaz Serrano went on to take control of Permargo when Bush was elected to Congress in 1966. Ten years later Diaz Serrano, too, appeared to give up his interest in Permargo when he moved into a government job-head of PEMEX. In fact, he maintained his financial interest in Permargo and established a cozy and profitable relationship for PEMEX with the CIA and U.S. oil companies. After his high-profile incompetence and corruption were exposed, Diaz Serrano was charged with overseeing the theft of billions of dollars in oil and cash and was convicted in 1983 of defrauding the Mexican government of $58 million. Sentenced to ten years, he was released after five.31

At that point, U.S. relations with the increasingly anti-­U.S. Mexican government and, consequently, with PEMEX, deteriorated rapidly, destroying the good relations Bush had cultivated when he led the CIA in 1976. 32 Naming Names Were it not for the inadvertent discovery of a now nearly 30-year-old document that names “George Bush” as a CIA employee, these ex-spooks’ stories would be nothing more than just that–stories. But it is precisely because of these tales that an official document indicating Bush worked for the CIA cannot be ignored. The smoking paper was among the nearly 100,000 pages of FBI documents on Kennedy’s assassination that the FBI released in 1977 and 1978 in response to lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act. It sat undiscovered for almost a decade until author Joseph McBride stumbled across it and reported its exist­ence in the The Nation in July 1988.33

On November 29, 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote to the director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (whose staff traditionally in­cluded CIA officers). The document summarized oral brief­ings given on the day after Kennedy’s murder to “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Cap­tain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency by Mr. W. T. Forsyth of the Bureau.” It responded to State Department concern that “some misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation and under­take an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in U.S. policy,” Hoover wrote.34 But it wasn’t just the State Department which was concerned. The CIA had reason to be worried that rogue Cuban exile-supported operations might expose or impair its anti-Castro covert actions, which continued despite the Bay of Pigs disaster. With the election only three months away, the long­standing Capitol Hill cloakroom rumor that Bush was a CIA “asset” suddenly gained credibility when The Nation story hit the streets. Evidence that the Republican can­didate–whose relationship to the CIA’s illegal arms pipeline to the Contras as Vice President was already controversial–had in fact been a CIA operative, should have sparked a political firestorm. Oddly, the furor was short-lived. Pressed by The Nation for a comment prior to publication, Bush laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and, according to a White House insider, told his spokesperson Stephen Hart to tell The Nation that it “must be another George Bush.”35

When asked whether the CIA could check to see if, as Bush suggested, there had been another George Bush roaming the Langley corridors at the time, spokesperson Bill Devine replied, “Twenty-seven years ago? I doubt that very much [that we can search back). In any event, we just have a standard policy of not confirming that anyone is in­volved with the CIA.”36

When The Nation report failed to die a quick, natural death, the CIA reversed its standard policy a few days later and announced–because “the record should be clarified”–that it had iden­tified the “George Bush” referred to in Hoover’s memo. Indeed, a George Wil­liam Bush was employed by the CIA at the time in question, and it was he to whom Hoover had referred. CIA spokesperson Sharron Basso added that George William Bush left the Agency in 1964 and his whereabouts were unknown. Another Agency official told the New York Times that “we put a lot of effort into [identifying the man Hoover named].”37

Apparently, they didn’t try hard enough. George William Bush was found working for the Social Security Administration and living in Alexandria, Virginia, only a short distance from CIA headquarters. When read the memo, he responded: “Is that the other George Bush?” It was a logical assumption; George William Bush had heard that another George Bush worked for the CIA at the same time he had been “a lowly researcher and analyst.” In a sworn affidavit, George William acknowledged working for the CIA at the time Kennedy was killed, but affirmed: “I am not the Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agen­cy referred to in the memorandum.”38

So, according to George William Bush, there was anoth­er George Bush working for the CIA when Kennedy was killed. The CIA won’t comment, and the White House won’t “give dignity to this matter with any additional comments. President Bush settled this in 1988 with his denial.”39

That’s pretty much the sort of imperious denial Bush gave to the recurring and unanswered questions about his role in the Iran-Contra mess. In that case, too, the apparent Bush-CIA connections go back decades. There is evidence that prior to Bush’s appointment as DCI in 1976, he was well-acquainted with legendary spook Theodore George “Ted” Shackley who joined the Agency in 1951. When Bush arrived on the scene at Langley, it was clear to longtime Agency insiders that there was a bond between these two men that went back many years.40

Between 1974 and 1976, a sensitive period in U.S.­Chinese relations, Bush was Ambassador in Beijing and Shackley was chief of the CIA’s Far East Division. In 1976, shortly after he became DCI, without seeking advice, Bush promoted Shackley to Associate Deputy Director of Operations. In this position, he was second in command to the DDO -the third most powerful position in the CIA and one of the most pivotal in the entire government.

Aside from their Agency connection, already cemented during Bush’s previous tenure in Beijing, it is hard to explain how the two men developed such a close bond.

For the previous 10 years, Shackley was Chief of Station in Vientiane and Saigon overseeing dozens of covert opera­tions related to the Vietnam War. Before that, from 1952-59 and again during 1965-66, he worked in Germany.

In 1962, before going into the jungles of Indochina, he returned for a three-year stint stateside as Station Chief in Miami–then the largest CIA station in the world and the base of operations for the Agency’s vast paramilitary operations against Castro following the Bay of Pigs dis­aster. “You’ve got ole George baby helping the Company’s operation against Castro and here’s Shackley in charge of the Miami station that’s running that show. Now how do you think they know each other my friend?” mused a former CIA operative involved in the anti-Castro activities. “Theirs was a damn close relationship–still is.”41

Under Bush’s tenure as DCI at the CIA, the two men worked together. Shackley oversaw Central America operations and established the infrastructure for the Reagan White House’s adventures a short time later.42 The veteran agent was not only the catalyst for the notion of selling arms to Iran to free the hostages, but he was also one of the architects of “low-intensity conflict,” the new name for the CIA’s covert strategy in Central America.43 Shackley was eventually forced out of the Agency in 1979 when an arms sales scandal involving him finally exploded. His relationship with Bush continued, and shorn of official CIA status, Shackley re-emerged in the early 1980s as an integral player in Iran-Contra. Throughout the early stages of those operations, Bush reportedly met with Shackley at Shackley’s office in downtown Arlington.44 Without question, President Gerald Ford’s nomination of Bush to head the CIA was a departure from precedent which some members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and their staffs greeted with suspicion. The public objection was that Bush was a partisan politician who would politicize the office. The objection whispered behind closed doors, by those who had heard that Zapata had been an Agency cover during the days of the CIA’s anti-Castro exploits, was that Bush was an agent with a past to hide. A man with skeletons in his closet might be a dangerous choice to guard the nation’s own collection of loudly rattling bones.45 The Church Committee and Watergate had already cracked open the CIA door too far for some and exposed the relationship of the Watergate burglars to the Agency’s anti-Castro activities, including several assassination attempts on Castro. Perhaps, how­ever, some of Bush’s supporters thought that someone who had successfully concealed his own past might be the perfect person for the job.

The appointment of Bush as Director of Central Intel­ligence also coincided with the Senate Intelligence Com­mittee probe of Oswald’s and Jack Ruby’s connections to Cuba, the CIA, and the mob. With his own ties to those operations, Bush was now in charge of what the CIA would and wouldn’t divulge. As DCI, he frustrated committee investigators’ requests for specific information in the Agency’s files on Oswald and Ruby and downplayed revelations about CIA involvement. Memoranda written by Bush on the intelligence committee’s investigation of Oswald’s and Ruby’s links to the CIA and organized crime show he was especially interested in the committee’s prob­ing not only of what the CIA knew about the events in Dallas and didn’t report to the Warren Commission, but to what extent, if any, the Agency was complicit in Kennedy’s murder.46 Clearly, as DCI, Bush knew the Agency had hidden, and was still hiding, crucial information which contradicted the Warren Commission’s verdict. Yet, in the wake of the furor over the movie JFK, Bush commented: “I have seen no evidence that has given me any reason to believe the Warren Commission was wrong.”47

“Bush was worried about something during those inves­tigations when he was DCI, all right. He was worried it was going to be found out that he worked for the Company and was tied right into all the messes the CIA was in during the late 50s and early 60s,” said “Chuck,” an ex-CIA contractor and Bay of Pigs veteran who claims to have personally dealt with Bush with respect to the CIA’s efforts to overthrow Castro.48

Government employees are usually pensioned off after 20 years. Strong evidence points to a 45-year record of loyal service by George Bush to the Central Intelligence Agency. A rest is long overdue. •

Sorry for the horrible formatting... And YES! Covert Action Quarterly has been back since May of this year. More...

If Barthes can forgive me, “What the public wants is the image of passion Justice, not passion Justice itself.”

First, happy new year. A bit early, I know. I hope you had a wonderful time with your family at Christmas, thrulookingglaass, just as I did with mine. Having two great grandchildren, both girls, one 6 soon to be 7, and her older sister will turn 9 in a few months. The older girl is rather demure and the younger is anything but, she's either headed for Broadway or somewhere much worse: So to prevent anyone from drawing an too angelic image of her, (though they're really both quite beautiful), not all that long ago her mother was called into a parent/teacher conference to discuss her telling saying "fuck you" to her teacher.

Before beginning to write I wondered how differently colored your response would be had I instead led with, Your sources?

But I'd really like to know where you came by this bit of knowledge, because I had long been under the understanding "Temporary" never received another S&B name. But more to my point of objecting to the Magog reference and why: Magog is mythical fantasy and George Bush was a ruthlessly murderous pirate, just like his many ancestors were and like them, he was a living human being. It's not wise to relegate supernatural stature the murderous acts of humans.

The second reason for my objection was something you pointed out in this excerpted quote:

thrulookingglass » Mon Dec 10, 2018 1:11 pm wrote:They always retreat to the gospels for reason rather than their own. Weep not for the wicked is a devil's song. You deserve to suffer just sounds so wrong. Noah picks bloodied fingernails out the hull of the arc after the water's recession noticing legions of five fingered furrows maring it's sides from those deprived of a safe passage through the storm. Who would cast a storm unto their brother's and sister's houses and bring so small an umbrella? By design the RMS Titanic has only so many lifeboats. Those who create a heaven for themselves while others suffer dwell in hell as well.

And that objection is basically this: "They always retreat to the gospels for reason rather than their own." Which seems to be exactly what the rest of your post quoted above actually is, or at least seems to me to be. Really, we don't need hyperbole or biblical references to help define Bush, the man.

The mysticism of the deep state is always a worthy topic for discussion, if you believe in the supernatural.

Be well. Have a safe and happy new year's eve celebration and thank your lucky star we have one less bad guy in the world, and that's worth celebrating!

Edited to add:

Obituaries have transformed the terror that Bush inflicted, depicting it as heroism.By Greg GrandinDecember 4, 2018

George Herbert Walker Bush represented a ruling class in decay. His WASP awkwardness, his famous syntactical struggles—described in obituaries as an ah-shucks genuineness, a goofy, “irreducible niceness”—was symptomatic of an Establishment in crisis. Franklin Foer, writing in The Atlantic, notes the nostalgia of the encomiums. The public apparently yearns for a time when politics were less coarse, when the country’s clubby elites were well-bred, well-voweled (compare the pleasantly rolling i’s and o’s found in the Harrimans and Roosevelts with the guttural u of today’s ruling clan), and well-mannered, their grasping and groping kept out of the press, for the most part.

What Foer doesn’t mention, and what is perhaps the single most important through-line in Bush’s life, is the way the extension of the national-security state, and easy recourse to political violence in the world’s poorer, darker precincts, allowed Anglo-Saxon men like Bush to stem the decomposition and to sharpen their class and status consciousness.

Raised in the shadow of legends, of a father (Prescott Bush) and two grandfathers (Samuel Bush and George H. Walker) who helped steer the expansive, epic era of Episcopalian capitalism—when American industry and politics had become interlocked with militarism—George H.W. Bush came into his own during the glory days of covert action in the Third World. This period ran from, say, the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran through the Guatemala coup in 1954 and the Cuban Revolution in 1959 to the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba and the Bay of Pigs in 1961, until the eve of escalation in Vietnam.

Bush would serve for a year as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the mid-1970s, but, as Joseph McBride reported in The Nation in 1988, his involvement with the agency had started much earlier. In November 1963, shortly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote a memo to the State Department describing the briefing of “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency” on the reaction to the assassination by anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami (it was feared by some that the exiles might take advantage of the chaotic situation by initiating an unauthorized raid against Cuba). McBride also cited a source with close connection to the intelligence community who confirmed that, as McBride put it, “Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities.”

Kevin Phillips’s American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush provides a helpful summary of the investigative journalism into the Bush family’s long-standing ties to this shadow world, a family linked by but a few degrees of separation to all the most-storied intrigues and collusions in postwar history, everything from the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala to the Iran/Contra scandal. Phillips provides thick descriptions not to prove any particular conspiracy theory but to establish sociological overlap and ideological affinity—the tight class and status connections between elites, like the Bush and Walker family, and foreign policy. According to Phillips, “from Yale’s class of 1943 alone, at least forty-two young men entered the intelligence services” (Bush attended from 1945 to 1948), and nearly every major player involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion had been in Yale’s secret Skull and Bones society. By the time Bush became director of the CIA in 1976, Phillips writes, “three generations of the Bush and Walker families already had some six decades of intelligence-related activity and experience under their belts,” which apparently also involved a Mexico-CIA “money line” that made its way into “the hands of the Watergate burglars.”

Through birth and breeding—at the Greenwich Country Day School, Phillips Academy, and Yale—Bush identified with an Eastern Establishment already, in the decades after World War II, threatened by democratization: by immigration, the rise of a meritocracy, the consolidation of an administrative state that socialized and bureaucratized private economic relations, and the spread of popular culture, which made the markings of WASP habitus available to the population at large. Anybody could wear a polo shirt, soon to be wildly popularized by Ralph Lauren, born Ralph Lifshitz in the Bronx to parents who had immigrated from Belarus.

Bush’s family, despite its Nazi entanglements, had done well under the New Deal. But H.W., out of Yale, made the jump to the libertarian rebel lands of West Texas, where “independent” Houston oilmen bridled at the privileged position of large petroleum companies—among others, Standard and Gulf—and their cozy relationship with foreign nations. As the war in Vietnam accelerated the crisis within the Establishment, and as Third World nationalism began to threaten their economic interests, this new class of carbon extractors gained in political influence and injected an intensified ideological fervor into covert ops. Phillips places Bush’s Zapata drilling company (named, apparently, after the 1952 Marlon Brando film Viva Zapata!) at the center of this transformation, involved in both the 1954 Guatemala coup and the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. (According to Phillips, the Walker-Bush sugar holdings in Cuba took a hit, as Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government “seized the company’s lands, mills, and machinery.”)

Obituaries have transformed the terror that Bush inflicted—as head of the CIA, as Ronald Reagan’s vice president, and as president, on poor countries—depicting it as heroism. The invasion of Panama is given scant notice, and the first Gulf War is judged “just.” But Bush helmed the CIA when it was working closely with Latin American death squads grouped under Operation Condor, naming Ted Shackley, implicated in terror operations in Southeast Asia and Latin America—including Vietnam’s Phoenix program and the 1973 coup against Chile’s Salvador Allende—the agency’s powerful associate deputy director for operations. Bush gave the go-head to the neoconservative Team B project, founded on the idea that, after the US debacle in Vietnam, the agency had become too soft on Third World nationalism. Politicizing intelligence, Team B provided the justification for Reagan’s escalation of the Cold War, including the various operations that made up Iran/Contra. As president, Bush set a precedent that Donald Trump might turn to, pardoning, on his last Christmas in office, six Iran/Contra conspirators, an act that “decapitated,” wrote The New York Times, the work of independent prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. “The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed,” Walsh said of the pardons.

Bush’s wars in Panama and the Persian Gulf should be remembered for gratuitous killing. On the heels of the fall of the Berlin Wall, his 1989 invasion of Panama established the legal and political foundation (as I’ve written here) for his son’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003. The killing in Panama was on a smaller scale than in the Persian Gulf, but it was still horrific: Human Rights Watch wrote that even conservative estimates of civilian fatalities suggest “that the rule of proportionality and the duty to minimize harm to civilians…were not faithfully observed by the invading U.S. forces.” That’s an understatement. Civilians were given no notice. The University of Panama’s seismograph marked 442 major explosions in the first 12 hours of the invasion, about one major bomb blast every two minutes. Fires engulfed the mostly wooden homes, destroying about 4,000 residences. Some residents began to call the ravaged Panama City neighborhood of El Chorrillo “Guernica” or “little Hiroshima.” After hostilities ended, bodies were shoveled into mass graves. “Buried like dogs,” said the mother of one of the civilian dead.

This was followed by the Highway of Death in Bush’s Persian Gulf. On February 26, 1991, US airstrikes massacred thousands of Iraqis fleeing Kuwait City in clear retreat on the road to Iraq. Here’s The Boston Globe (not available online, but published on March 2, 1991) describing the scene: “Flies hummed over the body of one decapitated Iraqi soldier. A charred tank, its hatch flung wide, still smoldered. A battered car lay flipped on its side, a trail of loot spilling from its half-open trunk: jewelry, sacks of potatoes, a pair of women’s red high heels. This was the doomed highway of escape for Iraqis attempting to flee Kuwait City too late. Four days after allied air and ground attacks turned this road into a blazing hell, the route remains a gruesome testament to the destruction rained down as Iraqi soldiers fled north Monday night. Mile after wreckage-jammed mile of highway appeared as if frozen in mid-battle. The remnants of a charred body still clung to a car door.…” The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill tweeted a reminder that Bush targeted civilian infrastructure in that war, including, on February 13, bombing the Amiriyah shelter in Iraq, which killed more than 400 civilians.

Bush famously had to counter the image of being a “wimp.” So for him, war in the Third World, whatever else it accomplished in terms of US interests, was more than (as Bush put it) “just foreign policy.” It was self-help. “You know,” he told soldiers returning from the Gulf in March 1991, “you all not only helped liberate Kuwait, you helped this country liberate itself from old ghosts and doubts.… No one in the whole world doubts us anymore,” he said. “What you did, you helped us revive the America of our old hopes and dreams.” Driving Iraq out of Kuwait “reignited Americans’ faith in themselves.” That faith was short-lived, destroyed by his son’s wars, but the social decay that both made and unmade the short-lived Bush dynasty—which has now delivered the nation to Trump—continues.

There are several sources that cite George HW Bush's Skull & Bones nickname/secret name as Magog. I will take this as simply factual at this time unless there are persons that can prove his surname/nickname wasn't Magog. The fabled or somewhat nefarious legends of Magog & Gog, which exist in Celtic lore as well are befitting of the malevolent form of rule HW Bush issued to humanity. We're also missing the "Poppy" nickname as it relates to Oz programming and the drugs the CIA and others decided to profit from. It's no wonder we are occupying Afghanistan. There was also the ransacking of museums in Iraq once US troops invaded which I believe were purposely orchestrated to destroy our links to true history and let us not forget Iraq and Iran are biblical lands, between the tigris and euphrates. I don't believe in mysticisms. I don't understand what you are criticizing about my post (to IamwhoIam), but I'm not going to start another psychological warfare thread here as there seem to be plenty on general discussion these days. The need to prove oneself more correct or having a more pertinent opinion seems to be the cause of the social animal. I happen to hate the 'holy bible' as I believe its entire purpose is to persuade the reader to accept the rule of a king who cannot be petitioned or swayed by the grievances of the populace. Many now believe in a King who will send people to eternal torture and suffering for their failures/sins here on earth thanks to the holy bible, not to mention grotesque views of sexuality, anti-homosexuality, and rabidly anti-feminist attitudes. I find this belief abhorrent, in fact, it is the most disgusting belief I have ever heard of. As I stated above, I do not believe any good can come from damnations. When I say rest in peace to HW Bush, I mean it, for I myself cannot for I still live in the world where his offensive calamitous responses to social issues darken my skies with bloodshed. I guess peace is not a luxury I will know in this life which is all I could ever hope for, for certain men have decided that momentary possession of property for the purpose of gaining money, which is really just a call to power, is more important than love for your child or anyone else's. The Earth spoke to me once, she had but one rule for me...love me...for why would you ever hurt something you love? The Bible teaches us to treasure God, not one another. God teaches us there is a level of importance you'll never reach, the patriarchal pyramid scheme. I know that all powers sought to control another creature, especially through the use of fear and threats of violence, are unconditionally immoral. Better left a tree is what I say about scripture, poisonous ink, darkens the well of consciousness. Built by a murderous tyrant, Constantine and or King James, male dominant rule, top down violence, structural viciousness. People have the power to change their lives, not just Jesus. I'm listening to a piece on menstruating women entering a temple in India right now on NPR. What good has religion done the world?! Don't tell me that aid to homeless peoples or food pantries are the best modern religious sects can accomplish. Habitat for humanity?! How about the whole fucking world! No soul has a right to claim the earth for their own profiteering, it is a common treasury for all! Anything less is unacceptable. The Mormon Church own over $35billion dollars in properties alone, how many of those are homeless shelters? How many offer aid without prejudice? How many do you see protesting the abhorrent waste of resources that is war? All are hobbled by the senseless accumulations of money. Peace is priceless, money is costly. American's spent approximately $66billion on pet supplies alone last year, coalition for the homeless, $12million. Squeaky newspapers one, homeless vets zero. Famine, pestilence, damnation, war...not a problem...until it happens to me.

And there's winners, and there's losersBut they ain't no big deal'Cause the simple man baby pays the thrills,The bills and the pills that kill

A working class hero is something to be. Social activism is the only righteous occupation. One of us in chains, none of us are free. Brandi Carlile, a lesbian self identified 'Christian' says I've been to the movies and have seen how it ends. Hope versus pragmatism. That quote you cited from the story of Noah, I don't understand where you get lost on that...I find the story horrific and both the God and Noah criminal in their activities, profited from murder. Could you imagine adhering to a belief that says, oh yes, my family shall live on, yours shall be put to death for transgressions against humanity/God. Trying to fight evil with more evil only furthers the cause of evil. Only a tyrant hears not the crush of bones beneath his feet. You know what is the worst sin, to follow with another. I hate the word 'sin' too, wrong, just call it wrong, maybe then we'd actually stopped doing it. And I will never find the enjoyment of sex as sinful.